Tom McIllwraith

Greetings:
I have been poking around on your site for some months and finally got around today to signing up. I enjoy very much your material. I happened upon your entry on “Munlochy Bridge” and am looking forward to learning that tune. My 2X great grandparents, Alexander Dunbar and Isabella Robertson, were the innkeepers in 1861 at the Munlochy Hotel which is located right beside the bridge and my grandfather, William Alexander McIllwraith, emigrated to Canada from Munlochy in 1913.
I am almost 77 years old, lived and worked mostly in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and retired from the faculty at Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax to Carleton Place, Ontario, in 2009 to be near grandchildren. During the past decade of retirement I passed my time building lapstrake canoes and skiffs until I began to find that my arthritic right hand no longer did as well with hand tools.
I have a lifelong love for and history of listening to violin/fiddle music and had often thought that I would like to take it up. In August of this past summer I bought a violin and began private lessons in September, 2021. I feel that I am progressing fairly well and would like to begin expanding my repertoire. During the past few weeks I have been working by myself on such tunes as Grand Etang; Farewell to Whiskey; and Si Bheag, Si Mhor. In addition, I have just joined the Ottawa Cape Breton Session and am very keen to grow musically in that community.
With regards,
Tom